


The Ashes of Mordor

by Littlemapleleaf



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Giving Orcs Complex Characters, I'm making this up as I go along, Multi, Orcs, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possible Legolas/Gimli If I Can Manage It, Slow Burn, possibly more relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-12-29 23:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12096000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlemapleleaf/pseuds/Littlemapleleaf
Summary: With the end of The War of the Ring and the defeat of Sauron, Mordor has become a chaotic power vacuum. Dragged from death by a warg, one orc will escape this fate, and for the first time in his life, truly experience the world outside the dark clouds of Mordor.





	1. Ashad and the Warg

**Author's Note:**

> This is maybe the fifth time I've attempted to write a Lord of the Rings fanfiction about original characters. It is the second time I have ever posted one (the first being about four years ago). I feel as though my skills as a writer have grown enough that I will have an easier time telling this story, though I am telling it with entirely new characters and an entirely new plot (and Legolas and Gimli are here this time, and though I have no idea where, will hopefully feature prominantly).  
> I know I am also working on another project now, which I do not plan to abandon. I've just been trying to write this fanfiction for so long, I feel like I finally have to post it before I get nervous and back out.  
> Oh, just as a content warning for this chapter. It is rather violent, and there is talk of death. As a more general warning, this has no beta reader. Hopefully there won't be issues which are too glaring.
> 
> For those reading on, I hope you enjoy it!

Hunched over a spinning stone wheel that he had stared at so long it no longer felt real, clutching a twisted metal blade with fumbling fingers, the _snaga_ Ashad did his best impression of an Orc not about to collapse. He had not a moment to yawn, or sleep, or eat. The aching of his back had become a part of his body, pain which he barely noticed. Not even when the sword slipped from his unsteady grip, slicing open his fingers, or when clawed hands tugged his hair so hard he fell backward and dragged him across the floor, or even when a whip lacerated his back did he react to the pain. Instead, Ashad watched black blood, black like iron and smoke and Sauron’s tower , like Ashad’s own thin layer of hair and the stained factory floor and the dark clouds that never left Mordor, and wondered how long he was going to last. How many scars his corpse would have. Would he be dismembered, left to rot, fed to wargs?

Did it even matter?

His back felt as though it had been run through the factory. Ashad lifted his hands to his pounding ears, only catching the words “snaga,” and “place” and “failure.” The foreman, he decided, was likely punishing him for fucking up.

Rough fingers suddenly clutched his chin. Ashad averted his eyes before the foreman could catch them, could punish him again for not knowing his place.

The foreman’s mouth was moving. Ashad caught once more only a few words through the beats of his heart, louder than a smith’s hammer. Something about chances, and examples. Ashad focused less on the words and more on the foreman’s unoccupied arm, groping for the closest tool in reach, before clasping a hot iron in a fire. Ashad’s hurried wonderings as to his fate were cut abruptly when the iron was shoved directly through his right eye.

The pain, usually evenly distributed about Ashad’s body, spiked suddenly. His socket felt as though it had been filled with a droplet of white fire.

For once Ashad was not distantly aware of his screaming but actively putting effort into the rasping of his throat while he clawed, panicked, at his skin until it tore open like cloth. Then he collapsed so the ground. Ashad found himself staring at the factory ceiling but not really seeing it. It was too far away, blurry and unreachable, the sky above Mount Doom.

“Sauron help me,” he croaked, voice a whisper, but Sauron was not the sort of master who helped dying snaga after they failed to serve their purpose.

When the factory emptied, Ashad barely noticed. He did not understand the reason, only that unless he got up and continued his work, he would be left there. And he couldn’t move.

So Ashad lay in the soiled dirt around him and waited to die.

It was taking a bit longer than he expected.

It was an ash-covered warg which padded into the factory later, and rather than eating Ashad, licked his wounds instead. She nudged him onto her back, shook her matted coat, and dragged him outside. His fingertips brushed against Mordor’s dry soil, back and forth with the warg’s gait.

With his one good eye he could see the empty factory. The foreman’s perch was abandoned, his familiar whipcrack only an echo in Ashad’s ears. He shuddered, and the warg turned, as though leading him away.

Ashad pulled his voice from his throat.

“W- wait,” he cried, “that’s my-- that’s my-- my factory! I’m supposed to be there! Lord Sauron needs--” Reaching far as he could, Ashad only managed to lose his balance and slip from the warg. She snorted, as though annoyed, and dipped her head to nose at his torso. Before he knew it, she had slid her head beneath him. Then suddenly he was lifted, and while he clutched tightly at her fur, she began to trot away from the factory.

She didn’t understand, Ashad realized. She was just a warg. He would either die or go back to that factory, he had to make weapons for Sauron, be a good little snaga, a good little work tool, or simply cease to be.

As though sensing his thoughts, the warg tipped her head in the direction of the tower. Ashad followed her gaze. Instead of the structure he expected, there was rubble. And smoke. The smell of ash on his nose. Plumes of fire, in the distance, all over Mordor.

They had... lost?

When the warg turned away a second time, Ashad did not protest.

* * *

 

The knowledge of his oncoming death did not register to him so much as the realization that he was too weak to move. Still, the warg carried him anyway, as though he was not about to die. It was all Ashad could do to watch the world through the blur of his vision, to comprehend what he even saw through the haze of his agony. Already he had lost his sense of time. Had it been hours? Days? How long did he have left?

It was in this odd, timeless existence that the warg finally reached their destination.

Ashad saw the tents first. From the angle of his neck, their white tops seemed to be more hallucination than reality. Then he squinted, and saw the enemy flag blustering high in the wind. Ashad watched through drowsy eyes as it grew closer and closer, only at the last second registering what it meant.

Surely, they would kill Ashad the moment they saw him.

His attempts to thrash, to roll from the warg and crawl to safety yielded nothing. He had the strength of dust. Of ashes in the wind. Of dirt kicked by the foreman’s feet. Before he knew it, the enemy had spotted him. Cries of shock echoed in his ears, just under the beating of his own heart.

He caught flashes of silver-- blades. Faces too perfect to belong to the likes of orcs. Hair that was not matted. Figures which were not hunched but stood straight. Skin not smoke grey but shades of brown and paleness, elegant curves of the body, elegant steps across Mordor’s ruined earth. He imagined little plants sprouting beneath their feet, what he imagined to be verdant green against charred clay.

Had he ever seen the color green before?

He had heard it in the stories of Uruks passing through the factory, of orcs who made it back from the battlefield, in whispers all around him.

What was green, he wondered.

Was it the color of the bright cloths worn by his enemy? Was it the sky not covered by blackness?

Ashad’s vision blurred. The figures came closer and seemed to dance on the edges of his thoughts. He could not stop staring at the too-perfect curves of their bodies, which flickered before him like fire. Were they light? If only he could look away.

His vision flashed dark.

_Oh,_ thought Ashad, as he finally slipped from the warg’s back, _it’s over._

* * *

Except it wasn’t.

Not for a long while yet.


	2. Lavir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit of a short chapter today, sorry guys! I also apologize for the wait. Thank you for sticking with me and reading this next chapter after so long.  
> This is unbeta-ed and probably not very well edited, just a fair warning.  
> I hope you enjoy!

Ashad woke up cradled in a bundle of sleeping warg, his skin wrapped in pristine white bandages. Through his one eye he saw that his wrists and ankles were tied with rope. Shifting snapped pain through his body. Movement seemed a waste. He pressed the unbandaged half of his face into the warg’s ashy fur, listening to the slow beat of her heart, his head moving slightly with each of her deep breaths. Blinking, he noticed the metal collar which chained her to the ground.

Outside, he heard the vague scattering of dust in wind, the flap of flags and the tent cover. Footsteps. Voices, hushed, loud, busy. The clatter of metal against metal that denoted sparring. The soft scent of herbs had wormed its way into the rot and muck of Mordor, tickling his nose almost pleasantly. He scrunched it, as though to sneeze, when the entryway to the tent opened. A ray of light from the outdoors beamed upon his face. Ashad squinted.

Before him was what he was certain was an elf. They were, for some unfathomable reason, smiling at him, Mordor’s harsh winds playing gently with the tips of their black hair. They almost seemed to glow themselves.

The elf glanced left, and said something excitedly in a language which was not westron to a person who Ashad could not make out. Then they entered the tent, leaving the flap tied open behind them. They strode to Ashad excitedly, only stopping when Ashad felt the tensing of the warg beside him. Somewhere in the past few minutes she had awoken, and now shifted her stance, growling at the elf, body curled protectively around Ashad.

“Relax,” calmed the elf in westron, “I’m not here to hurt it.” Then they laughed. “Not yet, anyway.”

Ashad blinked. The elf turned to him.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” the elf explained, “seeing as I was the one to wrap you up in the first place.”

The warg just growled. Ashad found himself clutching at her neck for support while she rose to full height.

“You’re not being very helpful,” the elf mourned.

Ashad shrugged. When the elf turned to him, he tensed.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” they said, “my name is Lavir. Will you tell me yours?”

He shook his head. It was easier if he just didn’t speak.

“Well then,” said Lavir, “you’re no help.” They sighed. “You won’t even tell me why you decided to come  _ here  _ of all places?”

He shrugged. That had been the warg’s idea. There were many things Ashad had no idea how to do, and chief on that list was communicating with animals. Right beneath was communicating with elves.

Lavir frowned. “You won’t even answer any of my questions? I have many. Did you know that orcs might be descended from elves?”

He shook his head. Lavir sighed.

“It would be nice,” they complained, “if you would answer me. Sauron lost. It’s over. We’ll probably be leaving Mordor soon. I thought, that maybe since we weren’t fighting anymore, we could communicate instead.”

They raised their open palms, and knelt on the dusty floor of the tent, edging slowly close to Ashad. Cautiously. Staring directly into his eyes. Then, they held out a hand to him.

Uncertain of what action to take, Ashad blinked at their palm, blinking in their delicate looking fingers, at the calluses on their palm. They looked as though they were made of glass. Something breakable.

Then he looked at his own hand. Dusty, dirty, and grey. Was he supposed to match the elf? Did they expect him to touch his hand? He didn’t understand.

“Will you speak with me?” they pressed. Ashad pressed his back into the warg’s fur. “Please. Take my hand.”

Ashad lifted his hand, stretching his palm towards theirs. For a moment, it hovered just above Lavir’s, his claws above their wrist where blunt fingernails were beneath his.

“Please.”

Ashad made the mistake of looking up, wrenching his gaze from Lavir’s hand to their lustrous eyes. Their face was smooth and not twisted, the corners of their lips curved upward, their face smooth. He didn’t understand. Nobody had ever looked at him like this before. No orc or uruk nor even snaga had ever stared at him with anything but suspicion. This was not a gaze clouded with the toil of the factories, or snarling with hatred and misery. Alien, to him.

“Stop.” he whispered.

Lavir’s eyes widened. “Did you speak?” They seemed melt with warmth- not the heat of a factory but something far lighter, something that Ashad had never seen. A tiny light. Something heavy seemed to bubble in his throat.

“Stop  _ looking  _ at me like that!” he blurted. He wanted Lavir to go away, to get out. He couldn’t understand what they were still doing here, why they hadn’t taken a sword and run him through. He was an orc, wasn’t he?

“Hey,” Lavir soothed, “it’s okay. I won’t hurt you-”

Ashad growled, vicious as the warg, and snapped his teeth at them. Burying his face into the warg’s fur, he found himself caught in a fit of trembling even long after Lavir’s departure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! Any comments and critiques are welcome and very much enjoyed.


End file.
